We left Auknasheals and the Macraes its the afternoon, and in the evening
came to Ratiken, a high hill on which a road is cut, but so steep and
narrow, that it is very difficult. There is now a design of making
another way round the bottom. Upon one of the precipices, my horse,
weary with the steepness of the rise, staggered a little, and I called in
haste to the Highlander to hold him. This was the only moment of my
journey, in which I thought myself endangered.
Having surmounted the hill at last, we were told that at Glenelg, on the
sea-side, we should come to a house of lime and slate and glass. This
image of magnificence raised our expectation. At last we came to our inn
weary and peevish, and began to inquire for meat and beds.
Of the provisions the negative catalogue was very copious. Here was no
meat, no milk, no bread, no eggs, no wine. We did not express much
satisfaction. Here however we were to stay. Whisky we might have, and I
believe at last they caught a fowl and killed it. We had some bread, and
with that we prepared ourselves to be contented, when we had a very
eminent proof of Highland hospitality. Along some miles of the way, in
the evening, a gentleman's servant had kept us company on foot with very
little notice on our part. He left us near Glenelg, and we thought on
him no more till he came to us again, in about two hours, with a present
from his master of rum and sugar. The man had mentioned his company, and
the gentleman, whose name, I think, is Gordon, well knowing the penury of
the place, had this attention to two men, whose names perhaps he had not
heard, by whom his kindness was not likely to be ever repaid, and who
could be recommended to him only by their necessities.
We were now to examine our lodging. Out of one of the beds, on which we
were to repose, started up, at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops
from the forge. Other circumstances of no elegant recital concurred to
disgust us. We had been frighted by a lady at Edinburgh, with
discouraging representations of Highland lodgings. Sleep, however, was
necessary. Our Highlanders had at last found some hay, with which the
inn could not supply them. I directed them to bring a bundle into the
room, and slept upon it in my riding coat. Mr. Boswell being more
delicate, laid himself sheets with hay over and under him, and lay in
linen like a gentleman.